Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-103-04
Last-Modified: 1999/06/14
Q. I asked both about the Reich and also about those
countries, but that really is not important. In any case,
you had around you all the men who had acquired experience
in the various European countries. So if an SS man is
referred to here as being helpful to the Hungarian
Government on anti-Jewish legislation, he was probably also
one of your men. Perhaps you can give his name?
A. This could be Hunsche, just as well as the legal adviser
to the Commander of the Security Police and the Security
Service. I just do not know.
Q. Who was this? Who was the legal adviser to the Commander
of the Security Police and the Security Service in Hungary,
if there actually was such a person?
A. I do not know. In any case, there were several, and they
would definitely have been in Department II of the Commander
of the Security Police in Hungary, just like with any other
commander. Every senior commander had his legal set-up.
Q. You will agree that in your group there were the men who
had worked at this job for years, both in the Reich itself
and in the various European countries, and when someone was
needed as an adviser on such matters, then Wisliceny,
Hunsche or Abromeit was definitely the right or the suitable
person for such an assignment, correct?
A. The only thing I would think is that the person must at
least have been a jurist, in any case an Assessor or a
Government Counsellor. So that is why I said that it was
just as possible - I would not wish to deny this at all -
just as possible that it was Hunsche, but it was also just
as possible that it was the commander's jurist or jurists.
Q. All right. Can you tell me why you dealt with the case
of Gisi Fleischmann in Hungary?
A. Gisi Fleischmann means nothing to me. That may have been
the Slovakian affair?
Q. Yes.
A. But I did not deal with that in Hungary.
Q. Did you not actually deal with that at all?
A. This is new to me. Although the name Fleischmann is very
familiar to me - it has been mentioned here several times,
Wisliceny also refers to it - I did not deal with
Fleischmann in Hungary.
Q. Perhaps you could recall that the instruction was given
to send her to Auschwitz, and you were asked to cancel this
instruction?
A. I never issued any such instruction.
Q. I did not say that it was issued by you. An instruction
was issued to deport her from Slovakia to Auschwitz, and you
were asked to intervene and cancel this instruction. Do you
remember that?
A. I do not remember that, but it was not possible for me to
deal in whatever fashion with any intervention by another
country, when I was in Hungary. For that, it was Section
IVB4 in Berlin which was competent, or some other body,
which would then have had to submit it to the Department
Chief. I had no such possibilities.
Q. Not even to recommend or to ask for it? You told us you
came to Auschwitz in order to ask for easier work for
Storfer, and you asked Mueller to approach Gluecks, in order
to have it entered in the Auschwitz books that Storfer was
to sweep the floors there. And so you could not interfere in
the Gisi Fleischmann affair?
A. If it had been submitted to me, perhaps, depending, but
it was not in fact submitted to me. In Hungary I had no
idea of any Fleischmann case.
Q. And everything which has been related here, that you were
approached, that you promised that the deportation order
would be cancelled - all that is untrue, right?
A. What deportation order, if I might be permitted to ask?
Neither in Slovakia could I cancel any deportation order,
nor in Hungary.
Q. It was said that an order was issued to deport Gisi
Fleischmann to Auschwitz, and that you were asked to
intervene, and you promised to intervene and even produced a
telegram, as if you had sent off some intervention against
her arrest or her deportation to Auschwitz. So is all that
not true?
A. In any case, I cannot remember one single detail of this
matter. Even if I were told today that I had intervened in
the Fleischmann case, it would definitely not...it would not
in fact be a bad thing. But I would still have to say that I
can no longer remember any part of this matter, and so I
must say that I was not responsible for this matter. I
would not even consider it possible.
Q. Perhaps the next matter will remind you of it? That
immediately after your ostensible intervention, you
immediately sent another instruction to deport her to
Auschwitz? And she appeared there with the card marked RU
(Rueckkehr unerwuenscht, return undesirable).
A. Not a word of that is true.
Q. During your absence in Budapest, was your deputy Guenther
appointed Section Head?
A. I do not know. In any case, I was officially released
from my Section duties.
Q. So he ran the Section as he always ran it in your
absence, without receiving any permanent appointment.
Correct?
A. I do not know. In fact, finally Guenther became the IVB4
Section Head. He was after all an Adviser on Jewish
Affairs, just as there was an Adviser on Church Affairs. I
was...
Presiding Judge: No, no, that was not the question. The
question was whether he received a permanent appointment for
this task, or for the position which you held before you
were sent to Hungary.
Accused: I must assume so, because the Section could not
be left orphaned. I was officially released from my work in
the Section, and also I gather this from a document in which
I received instructions from Guenther. So he must have been
appointed Section Head, because in Hungary I did in fact
receive instructions from him. If I had still been his
superior, I would not have received instructions from him.
So I must assume that Guenther was duly appointed to this
position.
Attorney General: You have told us here that when you found
out about Becher's activities in connection with Jewish
emigration, you were furious. You were the person who
always wanted to push for emigration, and now suddenly along
comes someone else and snatches this out of your hands.
That is how I understood you. Correct?
Accused: In principle that is correct. No one snatched
it out of my hands, but I flew into a rage because the
emigration which had been banned all along was now being
carried out by someone who had nothing whatsoever to do with
the police, but I had to deal with deportations. I did not
accept this, no; I became furious, and then I finally
resigned myself to such a final solution.
Q. You will agree that, at that time, it was in fact three
years that you had had nothing to do with emigration, but
only with deportation, and you had refused and rejected
every single case of emigration throughout these three
years?
A. I had to do that because that is what the orders were.
Q. At that time you no longer had anything to do with
emigration?
A. Yes...
Q. All right, yes will do. Now suddenly you, the person who
does not even dare make a proposal about sending a relief
parcel to the Generalgouvernement or to unoccupied France,
suddenly you think...you suddenly have the idea of making a
vast proposal to Himmler. Is that what you wanted to say?
A. Yes. I must also explain this, because...
Q. Without explanations.
Presiding Judge: Look, you still do not grasp the purpose of
the cross-examination. I told you right at the beginning in
the very first sessions: Answers are to be given to
questions, without explanations, unless the explanation is
necessary in order to understand the answer.
Accused: I just thought...to avoid a mistaken impression.
That is why I wanted to explain this. But if this is not
permitted, then all right.
Presiding Judge: I do not believe that a mistaken impression
would be given, but very well, go ahead and explain.
Accused: It is quite obvious, if the matter is
considered, that it is strange how I suddenly am on this
tack; but if it is borne in mind that this man, who as a
result of a special assignment can now deal in emigration,
but on the other hand interferes with my field of vision and
now presumes constantly, without possessing any police
status, to set some deadlines for me which anyhow I cannot
give instructions and orders about, then naturally one would
get furious, and that was the reason why I commented on this
matter, and that is how it came about.
Presiding Judge: All right, that is exactly what you said in
the examination-in-chief, as far as I remember.
Attorney General: But why did you have to fly into a rage?
You had received an order to carry out a transaction. Is
that what you got so furious about?
Accused: No, if my superiors gave me orders, I had to
carry out these technical transport matters, that is quite
clear, I had to obey. But if someone who is not a member of
the police presumes to give me orders about deportation
matters, while he deals with emigration...
Q. That is infuriating, right?
A. Yes, that is infuriating.
Q. And then you have the idea of suggesting not just ten
thousand Jews, but a million Jews; that is your idea, or at
least that is what you wanted to have us believe, right?
A. Yes, the hundred thousand or the ten per cent, and then
the million. This is what happened, and it cannot be
dismissed.
Q. That is your idea, you are saying, this is your proposal
and your idea, right?
A. At least no one else had it.
Q. Do you remember that in your conversations with Sassen
there was a great deal of talk about this matter, and also a
large number of passages were recorded in your conversations
with Sassen. There was a great deal of talk about the
transaction, right?
A. I have not looked it up, but that is quite conceivable,
yes.
Q. Well then, I should like to read out to you what you said
to Sassen, just one sentence: "Such a subject as ten
thousand winter-resistant trucks in return for a million
Jews I could never have dared even to plan in my office, I
would never have even had the idea." That is what you said
to Sassen, is it not?
A. That cannot be correct - a great deal was in fact
written, as you say, Mr. Attorney General, and so probably
the other version must also be written down somewhere.
Q. Very well, we shall show you something else where you can
also identify your own corrections. Would you please look
at this.
A. The marked passage?
Q. Yes, but first of all there are corrections on this
passage in your handwriting, aren't there?
A. Yes, there are a few.
Q. Would you now please read out what is marked, starting
with the words "I have the following to say," up to
the words "non-Jew"; all of this concerns the transaction.
A. In other words, "We would rather have..."
Q. Very well, read from there.
A. Where?
Q. In other words, "We would rather have done away with
them."
A. I do not know who that is...
Q. We shall hear your reply in a moment.
Accused
"I have the following to say: I never whole-heartedly
related to any opponent whatsoever - if I had related
whole-heartedly, I would rather have seen every single
opponent of the Reich dead than alive, because the only
good opponent of the Reich is a dead one. I would like
more particularly to say about this that when I
received an order, then damn it, I certainly carried
this order out. I am still proud of this today.
Because I observed my oath, and I have no more to say
about this."
"Do you remember any conversations or comments which
could seem to indicate that this business was in fact
repugnant to you?"
"No, no, why should it be repugnant to me - at that
time everyone had a best friend, and for me this friend
was..."
Attorney General: "then" - the name has been corrected
there, right? "then."
Accused:
"...then of the 22nd SS Cavalry Division. I knew how
this man was short of breath doing his best to protect
his couple of square kilometres. I related how I got
grenades for him, how I celebrated his birthday with
him - I told him how we had got to know each other as
junior commanders, when I could help him..."

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